Kings Cross' abundance of vegan lunch options

I've just finished few-months-long stint working near Kings Cross. The best thing about that job? The amount of vegan lunch options within spitting distance of my office.

Kings Cross plays home to Eat St, a little strip of street food stalls that runs Tuesday to Friday between 12 and 4. In amongst all the meat options, there's a vegan treat or two - my favourite being the subject of my last post, the vegan banh mi from Banhmi11.

The area also has its own vegan restaurant in the shape of Itadaki Zen, serving noodles, sushi and other Japanese dishes, along with some interesting set menus. I found the portions a little small on my last visit, but the food had a lightness and cleanness of taste that made it really appealing for a lunch stop. Top marks too for some little seen ingredients, like tofu lees, and a small but perfectly-formed beer list. Whistable Bay? Don't mind if I do.

If you're just popping in to Kings Cross station, there's still some interesting vegan options to be had. Chain bakery Le Pain Quotedien has a vegan blueberry muffin (props to them for having it clearly marked as such too). It's not going to rock your world at breakfast time - it felt more like eating a giant biscuit with delusions of muffinyness than a muffin proper - but if you're running for the Eurostar, there are worse things to shove down your neck.

Also worth a look is Sourced Market, which sells a decent range of vegan lunch items, including salads, curries and such from Laura's Idea and other bits and pieces like Conscious chocolate and Nakd bars. My favourite option is anything by Hoxton Beach Falafel. Their chilli falafel wrap is just lovely - I'm vaguely drooling thinking about it now.

That said, the best, repeat best, place for a vegan lunch pitstop is the Secret Society of Vegans, or Vx. Staffed by the nicest people you could ever hope to buy a cake from, Vx stocks vegan clothes, shoes and other animal-free bits and pieces.

For me, though, it's all about the food - there's cake from Ms Cupcake and Cat and the Cream, there's vegan marshmallows, Luna Bars, sandwiches, pastries, chocolate, biscuits, and hotdogs at lunch time. There's also all manner of weird and wonderful vegan esoterica to take home for tea later - doner kebab meat substitute caught my eye in particular.

Oh yeah, and they have vegan Wotsits. Wot's not to love?